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Ukraińcy w województwie gdańskim w latach 1956–1970 w świetle archiwaliów aparatu bezpieczeństwa PRL

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Słabig A.

Zapiski Historyczne

2011

vol. 76

issue 3

57-99

In the years 1956–1970 in Gdansk voivodeship there probably lived over 6,000 people of Ukrainian origin. They were displaced persons who had been deported there in the “Akcja Wisła” campaign (1947) from Lublin and Rzeszów voivodeships. Representatives of the old immigration connected with the former Free City of Gdańsk constituted only a small percentage of the Ukrainians. The authorities attempted to assimilate the Ukrainians totally through making it impossible for them to return to their former places of residence, supporting them financially, and satisfying their basic cultural, educational and religious needs. For this purpose they established the Ukrainian Social-Cultural Society (UTSK), which in practice was the only legal organization for the Ukrainian minority in Poland, apart from a number of quasi-official Greek Catholic pastoral units. The abovementioned organizations were strictly controlled to prevent spreading nationalistic ideas which collided with the policy of the authorities. If it was necessary, people suspected of subversive action were eliminated from public life. The units of the state administration (the Social-Administrative Department and the Department for Denominational Affairs of Presidium of Voivodeship People’s Council) and the political secret police (from the end of 1956 known as Służba Bezpieczeństwa – Security Service) cooperated to control the Ukrainian community. The dynamics of their activity depended on the personnel conditions, the political situation in Poland and the performance of the Ukrainians. The official control of the Ukrainians and other ethnic minorities was a permanent phenomenon and goes beyond the scope of this article. The security office closely watched activists of the Ukrainian Social-Cultural Society (UTSK), Greek Catholic priests, former members of the underground movement and people maintaining contacts with their relatives in the Soviet Union and in the West. Once it had been decided that their activity exceeded acceptable limits, various coercive measures were employed from the so-called preventivewarning talks down to imprisonment. It created the impression of the Security Service’s ‘omnipresence’ and ‘omniscience’, which strengthened the feeling of distrust of Poles. That is why the Ukrainian minority in the People’s Republic of Poland was given the name of the community ‘under close surveillance’.

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1 Zapiski Historyczne

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Ukraińcy w województwie gdańskim w latach 1956–1970 w świetle archiwaliów aparatu bezpieczeństwa PRL